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 【毛骨悚然】奥巴马政府失信、民主党要员失德，100天不到的奥巴马新政遭遇重大挫折 ZT |
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The Fifth Season
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头衔: 海归中将
声望: 博导
加入时间: 2008/09/12
文章: 4241
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作者：The Fifth Season 在 海归商务 发贴, 来自【海归网】 http://www.haiguinet.com
热贴：AIG 门！美国人民被政客卖了都不知道
"---At a town hall meeting in Costa Mesa, California, about an hour after Dodd spoke, President Barack Obama didn't directly address the language change -- but said he'll take responsibility for the bonuses being awarded--"
京港台时间：2009/3/20 消息来源：宽带山社区 网友评论 2 条
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美国有线电视新闻网（ CNN ）一篇报道让我读后感慨万千，也有点毛骨悚然，原来联盟刺激法案允许发奖金。眼下闹得沸沸扬扬的 AIG 奖金丑闻原来根源在国会或联邦府，这里藏有蛀虫。
那些争相表态要剥夺 AIG 经理们的奖金的民主党领袖们，面对一个很难回答的关键问题：为什么在当初没有采取措施，以防止这种奖金的发放？
民主党参议院银行委员会主席 Chris Dodd 说，他根本不知道那些豁免条款如何得以被插入最近通过的刺激法案。
哦，原来国会上个月制定刺激法案时，曾有一项动议以防止接受政府 Bailout 的部门主管乱发奖金。然而，最后被批准的法案里，文字被做了手脚，原先的动议被拿掉了，并加进了让 AIG 有豁免权的一些条文。
在有线电视新闻网采访时， Dodd 否认自己插入了那些条文，并坚持，他不知道那些条文是如何被塞进法案里的。
Dodd 告诉有线电视新闻网 “ 我当时起草的文件，没有现在的语言。 ” 民主党多位参议院领袖们也都否认他们对豁免条例塞入刺激法案知情。
奇怪的是，一方面原有的限制条款被神不知鬼不觉地抽出，另一方面让 AIG 乱发奖金的豁免条款被悄悄的塞入刺激法案。
据说美国参议院通过了一项两党都支持的的修正案，旨在对那些获得联邦援助的公司发放的奖金征税，除非该公司将这些奖金的钱还给政府。 但是，当时白宫和众议院闭门匆匆谈判时，这些条款被人拿掉了，却未能发觉。
美国参议院财政委员会主席鲍卡斯说 “ 老实说，当时一切都很匆忙 - 我们谈论的是让刺激法案获得通过，我没有时间，其他的与会者也没有时间来仔细查对许多已被大幅修改了的条款。
斯诺在接受采访时告诉有线电视新闻网 “ 我们本不该走到今天这步，本应可以跨越这一坎，但我们没能成功。” “我们尝试了，但却未能如愿，这是一个悲剧，因此才有今天的这一切。”
总之－句话，从这件事中，国会议员们拿国家法令当儿戏，拿纳税人的血汗钱当手纸可见一斑。神圣的法案被他们肆意篡改，却无人知晓，美国人民被他们玩于鼓掌之中。有一天，我们都被卖掉了，回头这帮政客会斩钉截铁地、痛哭流涕地说：
“我真的不知道是谁干的，这是一个悲剧。”
原文参见：
Bonuses allowed by stimulus bill
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS ... congress/index.html
CNN最新消息：参议院银行委员会主席克里斯托弗•多德（Dodd）告诉有线电视新闻网表示，他自己对语言添加到联邦刺激法案负责。这是对他一天前的否定之否定。
Dodd承认他在这件所谓乌龙中所起的关键作用，但他把责任推给了奥巴马政府，因为是政府官员施压后，而别人又不愿修改，才迫使他来了个“狸猫换太子”。
据说，政府官员担心，如果不按原先的合同让AIG发奖金，政府将面临许多诉讼。
看来，这件事会被政敌用来大举攻击，奥巴马政府失信、民主党要员失德，民愤越来越大，100天不到的奥巴马新政将遭遇重大挫折。
参见：
Dodd: Administration pushed for language protecting bonuses
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS ... congress/index.html
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updated 12:01 a.m. EDT, Wed March 18, 2009
Bonuses allowed by stimulus bill
From Dana Bash and Ted Barrett
CNN
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Democratic leaders scrambling to strip AIG executives of bonuses are having a hard time answering a key question: Why didn't Congress act to prevent the bonuses in the first place?
Sen. Chris Dodd says he has no idea how the exemption clause got inserted into the recent stimulus bill.
1 of 3 "There's always more we can do, and hindsight is 20/20," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid Tuesday.
But though some lawmakers did move to prevent bonuses in the stimulus bill last month, the final language actually makes an exception for pre-existing contracts, effectively exempting AIG.
Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd, D-Connecticut, who originally proposed the executive compensation provision, said he did not include the exemption clause, which said new rules "shall not be construed to prohibit any bonus payment required to be paid pursuant to a written employment contract executed on or before February 11, 2009."
In an interview with CNN, Dodd denied inserting that exemption at the 11th hour, and insisted he doesn't know how it got there.
"When I wrote the language there was no such language like that," Dodd told CNN Tuesday. Who's insured by AIG? »
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Multiple Senate Democratic leadership sources also deny knowing how the exemption got into the bill.
The mystery isn't just how what was effectively a protection for AIG was put into the stimulus bill -- it's also how a provision intended to prevent AIG from giving executive bonuses, was taken out. See a snapshot of facts, attitudes and analysis on the recession »
The Senate passed a bipartisan amendment proposed by Sen. Olympia Snowe, R- Maine, and Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Oregon, that would have taxed bonuses on any company getting federal bailout dollars, if the company didn't pay back the bonus money to the government. Watch congressional reaction to AIG bonuses »
But the idea was stripped from the stimulus bill during hurried, closed-door negotiations with the White House and House of Representatives.
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Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Montana, who is now pursing a similar bonus tax idea in the wake of outrage over AIG, said it was a mistake to drop it from the stimulus bill. He made a stunning admission. Watch why Americans are angry »
"Frankly it was such a rush -- we're talking about the stimulus bill now -- to get it passed, I didn't have time and other conferees didn't have time to address many of the provisions that were modified significantly," said Baucus.
"We shouldn't be here. That should have passed, but it didn't," he said.iReport.com: Sound off on AIG
Snowe chastised colleagues for expressing outrage about AIG's bonuses, when just last month they did away with her amendment intended to prevent it.
"We tried. It simply didn't happen, and that's a tragedy, given what's happened today," Snowe told CNN in an interview.
Majority Leader Reid would not directly answer a question from CNN about whether that was a mistake.
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updated 1:40 a.m. EDT, Thu March 19, 2009
Dodd: Administration pushed for language protecting bonuses
CNN) -- Senate Banking committee Chairman Christopher Dodd told CNN Wednesday that he was responsible for language added to the federal stimulus bill to make sure that already-existing contracts for bonuses at companies receiving federal bailout money were honored.
Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Connecticut, appears on CNN's "The Situation Room" on Wednesday.
Dodd acknowledged his role in the change after a Treasury Department official told CNN the administration pushed for the language.
Both Dodd and the official, who asked not to be named, said it was because administration officials were afraid the government would face numerous lawsuits without the new language.
Dodd, a Democrat, told CNN's Dana Bash and Wolf Blitzer that Obama administration officials pushed for the language to an amendment designed to limit bonuses and "golden parachutes" at those companies.
"The administration had expressed reservations," Dodd said. "They asked for modifications. The alternative was losing the amendment entirely."
On Tuesday, Dodd denied to CNN that he had anything to do with adding the language, which has been used by officials at bailed-out insurance giant AIG to justify paying millions of dollars in bonuses to executives after receiving federal money.
He said Wednesday that the "grandfather clause" language "seemed like innocent modifications" at the time. Watch Dodd's interview with CNN's Dana Bash »
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"I agreed reluctantly," Dodd said. "I was changing the amendment because others were insistent."
Dodd said he did not speak to high-ranking administration officials and the change came after his staff spoke with staffers from Treasury.
The White House did not immediately respond to CNN's request for comment.
At a town hall meeting in Costa Mesa, California, about an hour after Dodd spoke, President Barack Obama didn't directly address the language change -- but said he'll take responsibility for the bonuses being awarded.
"We didn't draft these contracts. We've got a lot on our plate. But it is appropriate when you're in charge to make sure stuff doesn't happen like this," he said. "So we're going to do everything that we can to fix it."
Dodd said later Wednesday in a written statement that his amendment allows the Treasury Department to review bonus contracts like AIG's and seek ways to get the money back for taxpayers.
AIG's derivatives branch is in Dodd's home state. Many of the bonuses in question were awarded to executives at that branch. But in the written statement, Dodd said he had no idea the legislation would impact the company.
"Let me be clear -- I was completely unaware of these AIG bonuses until I learned of them last week," he said.
Dodd also said in the statement that his comments on Tuesday and Wednesday to CNN did not conflict.
"I answered a question by CNN [Tuesday] night regarding whether or not [an exemption before] a specific date was aimed at protecting AIG," he said. "When I saw that my comments had been misconstrued, I felt it was important to set the record straight -- that this had nothing to do with AIG."
According to a transcript of the Tuesday interview, Dodd was asked about an executive-compensation provision "that exempts everything prior to February 11, 2009 -- any contracts prior to that date."
He said that language was not in the version of the bill that left the Senate and that he was not one of the negotiators who hammered out a compromise between the House and Senate versions of the plan.
"I can't point a finger at someone who offered a change at all," he said.
Asked whether he had later been able to figure out who added the language, he said, "I really don't know."
In Wednesday's interview, Dodd never said his Tuesday comments had been misunderstood.
"Going back and looking, I apologize," he said when questioned about his words from the day before.
On Capitol Hill Wednesday, AIG chief executive Edward Liddy called the roughly $165 million in bonuses "distasteful" but necessary because of legal obligations and competition.
"We have to continue managing our business as a business -- taking account of the cold realities of competition for customers, for revenues and for employees," Liddy told a House Financial Services subcommittee. "Because of this, and because of certain legal obligations, AIG has recently made a set of compensation payments, some of which I find distasteful."
Pennsylvania Rep. Paul Kanjorski, the hearing's chairman, responded to Liddy's statement by arguing that AIG should have refused to pay all the bonuses -- regardless of its contractual obligations with the bonus recipients.
"Let them sue us," said Kanjorski, a Democrat.
Liddy, who joined AIG after the bailout, said some employees have returned bonus money.
Senators and representatives have vowed to get the bonus money back, but questions have arisen about why Congress didn't act to prevent the bonuses in the first place.
"Well, the only lever we have in this is the fact that these corporations have come to the Congress of the United States and want a taxpayers' bailout," Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said Wednesday on CNN's "American Morning."
"If it weren't for that, we would not have any leverage on how any individual corporation is being run, and we don't pretend to have any leverage on any corporation today in the United States that's not seeking federal help," said Grassley, the top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee. Related: Grassley defends 'suicide' comment
AIG, an ailing insurance giant, has received more than $170 billion in federal assistance. Taxpayers now own nearly 80 percent of the company.
In a letter to Congress on Tuesday, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo confirmed that AIG paid 73 employees bonuses of more than $1 million each this year after it received federal bailout money.
AIG will have to return the $165 million it paid in executive bonuses to the Treasury Department, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said Tuesday.
Grassley and Sen. Max Baucus, D-Montana, on Tuesday introduced a plan that would impose a hefty tax on retention bonuses paid to executives of companies that received federal bailout money or in which the United States has an equity interest. Watch Grassley describe how the tax would work »
Other lawmakers, such as Rep. Charlie Rangel, D-New York, said it would be unfair to use the tax code as punishment, but Grassley said it's not a question of being fair.
"It's unfair what they did to the taxpayers by paying bonuses when they don't have the money to pay bonuses," he said. iReport.com: Sound off on AIG
Rep. Barney Frank, D-Massachusetts, said Wednesday that Congress can't just pass a law to abrogate any past contracts because that move would not hold up in court. Instead, he argued the executives don't deserve bonuses under the contract. Watch what Frank says about the bonuses »
"We own this company in effect, and we're not asking that these bonuses be rescinded because we have lent money to the company. I believe we are saying as the owners of the company, we do not think ... we should have paid bonuses to people who made mistakes who were incompetent," said Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee.
热贴：AIG 门！美国人民被政客卖了都不知道
ZT网址：http://www.backchina.com/news/2009/3/20/33683.html
作者：The Fifth Season 在 海归商务 发贴, 来自【海归网】 http://www.haiguinet.com
上一次由The Fifth Season于2009-3-27 周五, 05:19修改，总共修改了1次
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 【毛骨悚然】奥巴马政府失信、民主党要员失德，100天不到的奥巴马新政遭遇重大挫折 ZT -- The Fifth Season - (14138 Byte) 2009-3-21 周六, 16:26 (1976 reads)
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